Shirley Babashoff is a two-time Olympic gold medalist — but it's the four gold medals she didn't win that stick with her the most. Forty years after her last Olympic Games, Babashoff still maintains that she was robbed by a Cold War-era doping regime that powered East German swimmers to victory over the Americans.

The morning of August 30, 1904, dawned hot and humid in St. Louis, Missouri. The United States was hosting its first Olympic Games, and it was as if an oppressive blanket had been lowered over the Missis­sippi River town for a signature event, the marathon. Fourteen miles into the race, runner Charles Hicks—British-born but representing the United States—doubled over on the side of a road in what a reporter called “sweltering heat and clouds of dust.”

In one day, public perception of doping changed from a professional expectation to a dangerous, bad practice thanks to shoddy medical records and sloppy media coverage of a cyclist's death by heatstroke at the 1960 Rome Olympics.

Half of Americans take dietary supplements, yet the industry is protected from federal food and drug safety regulation by Sen. Orrin Hatch and others despite studies that show supplements are often mislabeled or tainted with huge doses of doping agents. The U.S. Olympic Committee was caught up in this soup during the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympic Games.

Mark Johnson asks and answers such questions as: How, why, and when did we become so indignant and disgusted with athletic doping? What does it say about us and our society as a whole? How have these attitudes shifted over time? And, are you certain we as a society aren’t somewhat complicit?

Argyle Armada author Mark Johnson has spent the last two years researching and writing a comprehensive look at doping, called “Spitting in the Soup,” published by VeloPress. Red Kite Prayer has been hearing about this book for a good year and has eagerly awaited its release.

The amateur ethos that still informs the Olympic sports runs counter to the very nature of sport, which demands high performance. The increasing commercialization of sports intensifies this tension—and the insidious temptation of corruption. The spirit of sport is a recent WADA invention, not an inherent quality of sport—but it’s still worth the aspiration.